Americans See Corporate Media As Bigger Threat To Democracy Than Donald Trump

The corporate media often rails against supposed threats to democracy. The press cites Donald Trump, the GOP, white men, and Elon Musk as reasons for concern.

Ironically, voters see no bigger threat than the very media spreading the hysteria.

A New York Times/Siena poll found that more voters view the media as a threat to democracy than any politician or political party. Bet that won't make the rundown tonight as MSNBC warns that democracy is under attack.

Concerns about corporate media also outrank the Supreme Court, the Electoral College, voting by mail, and voting machines, according to polled voters.

84% of voters who fear for democracy say the media is a "major or minor threat," compared to 67% for Trump and 59% for Joe Biden.

Registered voters consider the media problematic regardless of their party affiliation. 95% of Republicans who believe democracy is under attack marked the media as a reason. That's followed by 83% of Independents and 70% of Democrats.

Americans do not trust the media. A Gallup poll in July found that just 15% of American adults trust newspapers. Only 11% trust television news. Each is an all-time low.

Viewers and readers have come to expect the press to misreport and spin the most basic facts. Presidents come and go, while the media remains and continues to lose the faith of the public.

We wrote a column this summer examining the fall of the media's influence. You can read that below:

The media had a chance to earn back trust during Covid after lying about Donald Trump for four years. Of course, the pandemic only created an avenue to further push falsehoods and hysteria.

"The corporate media had an opportunity to regain a level of trust among Americans with honest reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time in which people flocked to news coverage. Instead, the industry used the period to parrot a myriad of partisan talking points," we explained.

"Established news agencies act as if society still turns to them as the arbiter of truth. They lie to us as if we are unaware they’ve wrongly framed each recent pressing issue the country has faced."

The stooges at the Washington Post who warn about the future of democracy are of diminishing return. Voters see them, the journalists, as the true threat.

That's the result of an industry that elevated some of the most compromised people in corporate America to prominent positions, from Maggie Haberman to Anderson Cooper to Chris Hayes to George Stephanopoulos.

Enemy of the people, perhaps. Threat to democracy, no doubt.